These subjects have for many years been the delight of Freethinkers and the despair of Catholics; those see in them a scathing satire on the manners of the monks and bishops, these lament that such turpitude should ever have fouled the walls of the Temple.  And yet it would have been so easy to explain the purpose of these scenes; far from seeking to apologize for the tolerance of the Church that allowed them, her honesty and breadth should have been held up to admiration.  By acting thus, the Church manifested her determination to inure her sons by showing them the ridiculous side of the temptations which assail them.  It was, so to speak, an object lesson or demonstration, and at the same time a bidding to self-examination before venturing into the sanctuary which was thus prefaced by a catalogue of sins as a reminder to confession.

This was part of her plan of education, for she aimed at moulding manly souls and not crippled creatures such as are turned out by the spiritual orthopedists of our day; she dragged out vice and lashed it wherever it lurked, and did not hesitate to preach the equality of men before God, insisting that bishops and monks should, when guilty, be placed in the pillory of its doorways; nay, she gibbeted them more willingly than others, to set an example.

These scenes were practically a comment of the Sixth (Seventh) Commandment, a sculptured paraphrase of the Catechism; the Church’s accusation and teaching plainly expressed so as to be understood of all men.

And Our Mother did not restrict herself to one mode only of expressing Her warnings and reproofs; to reiterate them she borrowed the language of other arts.  Literature and the pulpit were inevitably the interpreters that she employed to vituperate the sins of the people.

And they were not a whit more prudish or less audacious than sculpture.  We have only to open the books of the Church to convince ourselves of the violent language in which she was wont to lash the sins of the flesh.  Beginning with the Scriptures, the Bible itself—­which no one dares read now but in mawkish French versions—­what priest, for instance, would venture to recommend to the nerveless spirit of his flock the study of the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel or of the Song of Songs, that Epithalamium of Jesus and the Soul—­down to the Fathers and the Doctors?

How our modern Pharisees would reprove the uncompromising language of Saint Gregory the Great when he exclaims, “Speak the truth!  A scandal is better than a lie;” or Saint Epiphanius’ plain speaking in discussing the Gnostics and describing in detail the abominations of that sect, quietly adding in the face of the congregation, “Why should I shrink from speaking of the things you do not fear to do?  By speaking thus, I hope to fill you with horror of the turpitude you commit.”